


Just a freak

by SakuraAlexia



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25821364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SakuraAlexia/pseuds/SakuraAlexia
Summary: “Being a Siren is not as easy as it looks.”
Kudos: 17





	1. Lilith

Freak.

It was a word Lilith was used to hear when she was a little kid. 

Back on her home planet, the kids from her school, from the neighborhood, from anywhere else, saw her as nothing else but that. 

And if she thought about it, she could still hear their voices ring in her head, laughing, mocking, bullying her… and only because she had the misfortune of being born as a Siren. Not like she had chosen to be one.

No matter how hard she pretended to be like anyone else, those bright blue tattoos on the left side of her body, left no doubt that she was anything but normal.

Her parents had been supportive, trying their best to have her live her life as normal as they possibly could, but even they couldn’t stop other people’s cruelty in the words they pronounced.

She still got her grades, like every other person, but at what price? Everywhere she went she heard those words resonating in her head, she could feel the stares of other people as they looked at her in disdain.

When she got old enough, she decided she didn’t want to stay and pretend to be normal, and left Dyonisus for Pandora, in search of something she didn’t even know what it was. But at least, she thought she’d be safe and free to be somewhat normal here, where everyone thought with their guns instead of their heads, where she had hoped she would be free to be what she was born as, a Siren, without anyone judging her.

And she had been free for a while, but it didn’t last long, as she quickly realized that being one of her race, only ended in her life being threatened by literally everything.

Being a Siren on Pandora was just as equal as being that freak she had been back on her home planet, with an added death bonus.

And even though the bandits, and subsequently everyone else, called her by another name, Firehawk, she did not feel as glorious as it sounded. It was just a harsh reminder that, no matter what, she had been cursed to not be a normal person since birth.

Whatever name she held, Firehawk, Lilith, she was just one thing, she was just a freak. 

Looking at the fellow Sirens she met after, whether or not they were friends, foes, born with their powers, or had they acquired them later, she wondered…

Did they feel the same?

Were they freaks just like her?


	2. Steele

Freak.

It was a word Steele had grown used to hear.

Especially when directed at herself. She knew what Atlas thought of her, everyone, from the lowest ranking soldier to the CEO at the top. 

She was a monster, taken by the corporation at a young age, and trained to be the perfect soldier, a weapon, the best they had, just because she was different from all the others. She was their best asset.

Because of that, because she was a Siren, everyone feared her, knowing that if they dared to disobey, she wouldn’t think twice before eliminating them. And, being such a high rank officer was only an advantage for such a task.

She didn’t have to fear repercussions from anyone, even if she was wrong.

During the time she’d spent with Atlas, pretty much her entire life, she got used at hearing many names, so many honorifics and also so many insults, that in these years she had almost forgot her own name.

Too used at being called Commandant to care about such trivial things, they had trained her that way, so she wouldn’t care about anything that wasn’t getting the mission done, at any cost.

Names weren’t important, and neither were emotions like compassion and regret.

But, every time she heard that word, her heart couldn’t help but sting a little, she was used to it, but somehow she wasn’t at the same time.

Perhaps, it was just because she knew how much of a freak she had truly become, that she couldn’t fully accept to bear the weight that word carried with it, too heavy for her thin shoulders.

However, Helga had long accepted it.


	3. Maya

Freak.

It wasn’t a word Maya had ever heard the Order speak to her directly.

They would have never dared, they had been too busy trying to please her, so she wouldn’t turn on them, so they may carry on with their plans of keeping the population of Athenas submitted.

She had never asked for any of this.

A normal life she wished every day, and the furthest away from it she got. Trapped between the walls of the monastery she had been forced to live in, taken in by monks that had promised her the world, instead of with her family.

She had never even been told what happened to them, she didn’t know if they had ever been alive, hoping that one day she would be allowed to ever see them, or they had just been killed. She didn’t know, but once she found out what the Order really was about, she assumed the second option had been the more realistic.

Why keep alive who would have just caused you troubles after all?

She grew up being praised for being different, for having been born a Siren, that she had never truly known what it meant to be normal, to feel human.

Things didn’t change when she finally freed herself from the chains the Order put on her, and went to Pandora. Where her being different only meant more chances to either be captured or killed.

At least she wasn’t going to be stabbed in the back again.

She had met friends that for once, didn’t treat her like a Siren, but like a person, and she couldn’t have been more grateful for that. She had known others of her race, the ones that had fully understood her, nobody had ever even tried before.

It had been the best time of her life, but all good things had to have an end.

Starting from the very moment she stepped backwards, in what used to be her life before all of that. Returning where people spoke to her like she was a Goddess, and thought of her like a monster.

It was hard to bear the weight of it all, but she did until her very last moment.

Being a freak wasn’t easy, so, she had to make sure she chose well who could take it when her time came.


	4. Angel

Freak.

It wasn’t a word Angel’s father ever said to her.

But, even though he spoke of many words of love towards her, she knew what he truly thought, she knew he thought at her as something different, and dangerous, something to be contained and hide at every cost.

Otherwise then, why would she be stuck and chained down into her chambers? Away from everything, and denied any sort of contact, even her own father avoided coming to see her for as long as he could afford to.

She knew why she was here, it was because she had accidentally killed her own mother, but she had been scared, and her powers merely had reacted to her fear. She did not mean to do it.

She had taken her punishment, there wasn’t much else she could have done. Her father had claimed it was for her own good, but she knew he was just both scared and also willing to exploit her powers for his own success.

In her whole life, Angel never felt normal, she was like an animal trapped in a cage, from which she would never leave, like a circus freak, used by her father for her talents so he may become more powerful and rich than what he already was.

Not to mention more dangerous.

He thought she was the danger, that she was the freak, but he was so much more than she, and she was determined to prove it.

She silently turned to the ones that were supposed to be like her, she watched them being free and unchained, and wondered if they had ever felt like her before. She never had the courage to ask that though, but, she did have the guts to ask them to set her free of this burden, positive they would have understood her.

Because only a freak could understand another.


	5. Amara

Freak.

It wasn’t a word completely unknown to Amara.

Growing up in a family with as many siblings as her, didn’t give much room for thoughts that were much different than that. Not when it was so striking obvious that she wasn’t like all the rest of her family.

She was special, she was a Siren among humans.

Strong, powerful, in more ways than one, since her own powers showed nothing else but pure, and uncontrolled strength than no one else but her possessed.

Her family had helped her through, trying to not make her feel any different from the rest, her parents taught her to be kind and helpful just like to the rest of the brothers and sisters. Something rare on a planet like hers, the people that lived on Partali were poor, they didn’t have much, and most thought to themselves rather than helping out who had nothing.

So, she decides to start using her powers to help the people like her family, the ones that were weak and helpless. She had the chance to do so, and so she would.

Eventually she grows older, stronger and, famous, she attracts big names, who grant her wealth should she keep fighting bad guys. So she accepts, because that wealth wasn’t meant just for her, but for who has raised her to be the person she is today.

She doesn’t get to see her family anymore, but she is positive that, wherever they were, they cheered for her.

Her career then takes her to her ultimate challenge, Vault Hunting, where she finds friends and people that are of her same race, something she had dreamed to find since she was a kid.

She’s happy but it doesn’t last very long, as she witnesses what happens to Lilith, and even worse later on, with Maya’s death.

So, her thoughts eventually drift back to what she hadn’t thought since she was little, how Sirens were scary, both friendly and not. They were freaks, and she belonged to that category too, however, she wasn’t afraid to be one, she had never been, she had just temporarily forgotten in the time she had been cheered on like a hero.

If she had to become a freak to avenge her fellow sisters of race against bigger freaks, then, she would show them how scary a Siren full of rage was.


	6. Tyreen

Freak

It is not a word Tyreen would use to describe herself with.

She was a Siren, powerful and deadly, a Goddess among mortals, why would she even think about thinking about how much different she was? After all, if there was anyone that could be described as an abomination, that had to be none other but her brother Troy.

Ever since birth her had been attached to her like the parasite he was, quite literally, since he was indeed tied to her by the arm, and spent his life on leeching precious energy away from her. She was the one supposed to do that, not him.

She had the power, he was nothing.

Just like nothing were the other Sirens that had dared to stand in the way of her ascension to Godhood, Lilith in particular, but she had been kind enough to let her have her own powers, so she could become even better. The so-called Firehawk hadn’t been so powerful as the people of Pandora had claimed.

Neither was the woman’s best friend, the one with blue hair, she had been so weak to perish at the hands of her own powerless brother. He was not quite useless as she thought at least, even though she would have wanted the woman’s powers for herself and no one else.

And she had been right, given how much of a rebellious nuisance Troy had become afterwards. He had even tried to turn against her, but the little freak pushed his luck one time of too many, and he perished too.

So, what remained of his powers was hers to claim, what should have been hers all along.

And soon enough, Tyreen would claim the universe for herself and no one else, she was a Siren, and the best of them all.

So then… why did she feel so much like that freak of her brother? They weren’t meant to be the same, but, deep down, she knew they had never been any different from one another.


	7. Troy

Freak

It was a word Troy was more than used to.

He was born a male Siren, Sirens have always been females as far as he knew, and his twin sister was more than enough proof of that. He was given even more confirmation once they had arrived on Pandora, and heard of the two famous Sirens, the Sapphire and even more importantly, the Firehawk, whoever they were, for sure he knew they had to be women.

He was different, even more than just the fact that he had bright tattoos that should have never been on his left arm, which also emphasized his abnormality, since, compared to other Sirens, they were blood red, instead of cerulean blue like any other.

But no, it didn’t stop there, it went beyond his gender and the markings, it was the fact that he had no power of his own, what kind of Siren was he without them?

He was no human, his appearance and red tattoos spoke otherwise, but also he was no Siren, he had nothing that made him belong to either side.

And if it wasn’t enough, his body, probably because it was never meant to be whatever it was, also did not accept the Siren gene, mark, curse? There wasn’t an exact name he could give to it.

He was left there, not normal, not Siren, sick, and completely dependant from his sister, who didn’t waste a single occasion to remind him of it, he was a follower, a mean to an end.

Things turned for the better, once he realized that he did have powers, that they just had been dormant into him the whole time, and it had been thanks to the Siren warrior whose nickname was Sapphire, he had long forgotten her real name, nor he had cared to remember.

He had become powerful then, however, there was still a nagging feeling that he did not belong. The leech, it was Tyreen’s thing, the lock, it had been of the woman he killed.

Neither power he possessed was his, and in the end, he didn’t care, he was abnormal, he was a freak, even his own father thought so of his own son.

He had always been one of them, all he had to do was to stop fighting the feeling away, and embrace it.


	8. Tannis

Freak

It was a word Tannis had heard way before she had even got to Pandora.

It was how others used to describe her since forever, and it wasn’t because of some particular markings, or not yet at least. She was a freak just because she didn’t like other people.

She preferred the company of books and lab equipment any day, instead of the company of another person, that made her nervous to the point of wanting to vomit. She was fine by herself, she didn’t need relationships with other human beings.

Besides, they were incompetent, ignorant, and jealous of her genius, she was smart, she knew a lot of things not even the best scientists had even guessed before.

Her lust for knowledge had brought her to Pandora, this ruthless and savage planet, looking, like many other fools, for the legendary Vault, and if she had something over those idiotic glory hounds, was her intellect.

She kept looking even when the Dahl Corporation abandoned her, and their soldiers on the planet when the Atlas arrived to drive them away. In her loneliness, she kept searching, desperately trying to find a source of anything that would keep her remotely sane in the insanity that was this planet.

She was glad she did, it had brought her to her next very new obsession, other than actually finding people that appreciated her work for real for a change. 

Learning about Sirens became her next goal, it was unfortunate that Lilith had been such an unwilling partner to work with though. Years later, she met Maya, and she had been more pleasant and willing to cooperate, but it wasn’t until later that she managed to understand how it felt and what meant to be a Siren.

Because when Handsome Jack’s daughter Angel died, she’s found herself suddenly waking up with blue markings across the left side of her body. That had certainly been a shock that had sent her newfound powers haywire, as she blew up a washing machine from the scare alone. Luckily no one had been to see that.

She took her time to study herself, to see what changed and what she could do now, but to this day, she had no idea whether or not, Angel had meant to leave her powers specifically to her, or if it had just been fate alone.

The other residents had been surprised, but not at all repulsed by this new being she had become, in fact, they had been oddly welcoming of the change.

And change it had been, and if she could see all of those people that made fun of her for her being different, she’d love to show how much different she truly had become, being now one of the rarest beings in the whole universe.

She’d been called freak before, and now, as a Siren, she did feel somewhat even more like one, however, she was very much happy to be something she’d been looking for all along.


	9. Ava

Freak

It wasn’t something Ava would have ever thought to become.

But as she grew and changed with her new powers, that once belonged to her dear mentor Maya, she found herself becoming different.

Even for such a young girl, sometimes dark thoughts snuck into her mind, with the nagging feeling that she had become something more than what she thought she would be. There was something distinctly different from being a human and being a Siren.

If she could describe it, she would say it’s an ever constant pressure, like a weight placed on her shoulder, with it, the knowledge that she was now part of the most wanted race of the entire universe. 

Wanted for all the wrong reasons, because normal people feared them, and would rather want them dead than try to understand them. And she thought she would be the same, hadn’t she been rescued, raised and saved literally by one of them.

And then later got her curse bestowed on her.

“Being a Siren is not as easy as it looks.” Maya had told her, when Ava still believed that belonging to their race, had been nothing else but bright tattoos and amazing powers.

She understood now, or at least tried to do so.

The knowledge of not being able to be seen or considered a normal person again, was annoying to think about, almost scary. The future didn’t look so bright as it did when she had been told she would become one of them.

And she wondered, if perhaps, Maya had felt the same all along, if she ever had those thoughts like her. Ava supposed she did, the woman had held the powers and also lived far longer than her.

Still, she would have liked to ask these questions to her herself, had she still been by her side. She would dearly miss her and her guidance.

And for her, she would accept whatever the universe had to offer to her, whether it was love or hate it didn’t matter, Maya had trusted her powers onto her, and she didn’t want to disappoint her.

Maya had chosen her to bear this weight out of all people, because she believed that she was the right person to do so.

Even if it meant feeling and being a freak, then, so be it.


End file.
